Thursday, July 17, 2008

I thought I would take some of my practice images and make cards with them, but then I realized it would be another couple of months before I posted them so here they are in all of their cardless glory. This first image shows a couple of the blending techniques that we learned. On the cupcake, I used similar colors to blend just to add some dimension to the cupcake frosting. When blending colors, you want to use colors that are similar. Copics markers are all numbered and when you understand those numbers, it will help you make good choices when choosing colors to blend. On any Copic, the first number will tell you about the saturation of color while the last digit tells you how light or dark the marker is within that group of colors. Marianne explained to us that when choosing colors to blend, we should choose colors that have the same letter and first number while keeping 2-3 digits between the last digit. For example, if you had a BG01, you might use it with BG05 and BG07. I wish I wrote down the actual colors I used, but of course I didn't. I'll have to start doing that in the future. Another blending technique is to color and blend two colors which is what I did on Cuppacakeabella's dress. I used a turquoisish color and a pink color. I thought that this was a fun technique which could be applied to a variety of stamped images: clothing, flames, leaves, flowers...the possibilities are endless! Copics are great for this type of blending--if I tried this with my other stamping markers, I'd end up with a dirty mess. Copics are great for blending, just know that the blending takes time and patience. One of the most important things that I learned yesterday was that blending doesn't happen in an instant. It requires layers and layers of color which requires more than just a couple of quick strokes with the markers!

This next sample shows some of my failures as well as a technique using the blender pen. Marianne said that knowing how to fix one's mistakes is really important because rarely do we color something perfectly. When coloring outside the lines with Copics, the Colorless Blender can be your best friend. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't quite get the hang of it. I had some of the red on the cape outside of the lines and I tried pushing it back to the line but ended up with a mess. Marianne explained that red is NOT the easiest color to work with for this technique so I will try it again with a lighter color next time :-). On Superbella's skirt, I used a dark navy color (B39) and then used the blender to make the skirt look like it had a stonewashed type texture. This was done simply by dotting the brush tip of the blender pen onto the skirt and working it until the color was what I wanted. Very simple and easy. I liked it so much that I tried it again on Cosmobella which can be seen here.

Well, I think that's enough to share for one day so I'll be back tomorrow with a couple of other tips and tricks.